Snowfall scene- notes on a score-
Winter’s music falling plays
Entrancing eyes to listen, to explore.
This wintry prelude inviting gaze..

As by unseen will, unheard instruction
Sway the trees as do the winds,
But taking cues from Nature’s conduction
Give swelling notes that gently dim

A heaven of clouds, fleeing, dark,
In passing feeds a sea of snow
Dark pine trees of snow-painted bark
Sway in unison- thanks they show

No moon, no stars to improve
This symphony untouched by light
Seemingly glows, while seeming to move
My withheld breath, my frozen sight

The tempo of this voiceless song
That puts this winter’s night to rest
Slows to largo with notes prolonged-
And Winter’s dreams, who could guess?

Intro
Words in play without meter or rhyme
Is poetry without respect for sounds or time
Like a military bugler playing his morning song
But jazzing it up, which for the morning sounds wrong.

1
Poems short of prose serve to play the edge
In which the abstract thought can its verses wedge
Poetry's an art - that can't be denied
But when ripped apart, leaves readers in divide.
On one hand we have free verse with all its liberties
Its flows, like ocean waves, give in to subtleties
The other hand holds form where order and beauty lie
Its sound there calms the mind and guides the reading eye.
Well, how can art transcend if it's to be confined?
Ask the poor man painting, what keeps his strokes refined.
Ask him what is richer: materials or mind-
How he affords true art: in color or design.
And could he paint with passion if he were also blind?
To what limit does art flow, that could liberty unwind??

2
If sentences were laid and in stanzas fitted to form,
The simplest thought now sparks, the layman poet is norm -
-A hand that holds a pen.. its wondrous poem adored
Ha! That relic sonnet lost 'cause the modern reader's bored.
The talentless recites: his poetry: my rage..
Where then is the poem, in the words or on the page?
I'll credit that the form of poetry can change:
Like ocean waves on shores where waters rearrange
And subtleties lay washed whence art can have a fad
And for a moment last despite what I think bad.
Words without art, conveyed for art-less brains
The verse that freely speaks as the older school disdains..

3
But rhyming, timing schemes of ancient preference
What novelty they yield in these times of rhyme suspense....
Just the thought of it and one can hear a beaten drum,
A percussive, tired sound for ears tired and numb
They're artifacts of effort that the ancients then called art
Confined to rhyme and metered verse, the caged poems impart-
Shakespeare, Wilmot, Behn, these are but forgotten names
A pantheon of "poets" whose works of words too tame
Did not taste the "modernness" that free verse giveth to thee...
The ghosts of poems past singing their songs but never free.
How lucky for us rebel writers, we laugh at silly rules!
Rule-less, ruthless poems we write with rhyme nor time as tools!

The world of poetry, what our modern times produce
Leaves me no hope, no urge to peruse.
What most deem as poems – really, a sad excuse..
Something to be sentenced and hung by the noose..
But in this hopeless world, I’m pleased when I find
An art in poetry that but few have designed
I’m refreshed once again, guess the Lord is still kind;
I’m moved by neural sparks induced by words refined
-Like those of the old poets! These kids today
Write elongated sentences and in stanzas lay
What they call art; I just read in dismay
Spark-less, rhyme-less thoughts! with no form or array..
I’m grateful to you guys; you’re great, you truly are.
I’m reminded once again and have gladly found the bar
Is set high as it should - the work of few and far,
Poets, who so rare, I hope to write on par

Love is just a word,
A noun and a verb,
A feeling, an idea,
A moment or eternity.
It is yin and yang,
It is heaven and hell-
A fruit meant for two,
And its planted seed-
That moment of doubt
On a roller coaster's peak,
The reason we wake
Or we're too mad to sleep,
A year of preparation
For a minute of glee;
Love is imperfect,
If perfection we seek.
It may come as a "hi"
Or the silence of the eyes,
It is the first kiss,
And remembering those we miss.
Love is four letters,
In this human, human language-
It is the privilege we get,
For the burden of our being.

Someone changed my world
It’s funny and hard to say
So now my life is stranger
I feel this everyday.

It’s like whatever when I wake
Likewise the things that I partake
Were the choice mine to remake
I think I’d make the same mistake.

For such a pretty face did I get up and try
And charm unlaced, but told a lie
To her who, charmed, attended
And with fibs she did comply,
But what fool, I thought, lamented,
That I could not haste her mine!